The Press Club

A good story with a strong angle, well and imaginatively written.
Hold the front page.

The Press ClubPhoto: Justin McManus

Address

72 Flinders Street, Melbourne

Phone

9677 9677

Style

Restaurants

Cuisine

Greek

Hours

Mon-Fri midday-3pm, Mon-Sat 6pm-10pm

Details

Licensed

Payment

Bankcard, Visa, EFTPOS, AMEX, Cash, Mastercard, Diners Club

Price Guide

Typical small dish $14, typical main $30 (slightly more at night)

THERE'S a line at the bottom of the restaurant's menu. It reads:
"We at The Press Club pride ourselves on the nutrition of our
children. We are happy to create child-sized portions from any item
off the menu."

I point this out not because I'm a parent with children who are
sick of the nuggets/spag bol/fish and chips regimen. And not to be
pedantic about grammar. Rather, because I think it says something
important about the restaurant, something I've noticed during the
course of several lunch visits: generosity of spirit.

There is something warm and cosseting about this elegant new
platform for George Calombaris, hewn from the solid stone of the
former Herald and Weekly Times Flinders Street edifice.
It's in the attitude - or rather lack of it - of the waiters; the
generous portions, full flavours and careful cooking of the food
and the value-added way it's presented on timber boards at the
table a la Vue de monde; the way another house-made pistachio
sourdough roll just arrives without some grand gesture as to
whether "sir" would like more bread.

To some extent, it's a Greek thing. Greeks are hospitable,
generous people - particularly when it comes to food - and this is
a Greek restaurant. Sort of. It's run by Greek-Australians,
including head-chef/co-proprietor Calombaris.

But really, it's a very contemporary restaurant. A classically
elegant, modern, dark interior of timbers, black marble and
splashes of red by architects Buro (who also did The Botanical), it
makes the most of the big windows punched into the fortress-like
walls of the old HWT headquarters. It's very comfortable,
quite formal and rather masculine, although connections with the
building's past use are subtle at best.

Calombaris, 28, has packed a lot into his career, starting with
the classical thing at Sofitel as an apprentice, doing comps such
as the Bocuse d'Or, working for Ray Capaldi as head chef at Fenix,
launching the much talked about Reserve with its sometimes
brilliant - sometimes difficult to swallow - semi-molecular
gastronomic concepts. He's a technician.
And like any artist, all that background plays its part here within
TPC's open kitchen. But it is shaken into a rather refined emulsion
with his Greekness. So we have, for example, at our
paper-over-linen dining table, refined glassware and cutlery and
little things that show impressive attention to detail for a chef's
first "own" restaurant. Order Hellenico - Greek coffee - and it
comes with a shot glass of soda water with a teaspoon of mastic at
the end "for digestion".

There is a well thought-out contemporary restaurant sensibility
to nearly everything here; even a virile Greek salad is composed of
perfectly chopped and finished ingredients in a swank white
porcelain dish.

At TPC, the food swerves from the slavishly traditional to ideas
- particularly desserts - that take Greek flavours and inspiration
as their springboard only. And to the restaurant's credit, plenty
of Greek wine is on the list as well as a staggering selection of
ouzo.

The first visit produced several highlights. A bowl of dusted
and deep-fried school prawns - eaten whole - served with a dressing
of Attiki wild thyme honey infused with fish sauce, producing an
amazing sweet/salt result; a piece of excellent lamb rump served
with saganaki haloumi, watermelon cubes, green beans and shiso (a
micro herb used a lot here); an individual baklava of rabbit, with
a separate salad of pickled cucumber and shaved fennel.

The menu was almost entirely different two weeks later, but
Calombaris' cooking hadn't altered.

For the second visit we eat meze style, sharing everything.
Greek olives done four ways ($13.90) consists of four unpredictable
items: a tartare of tuna, candied olive, olive oil and burghul; a
combo of black olive and dark grape cheeks; a dip of green olive,
feta and ricotta, served with savoury pistachio biscotti and
rocket; and crumbed and fried olives stuffed with braised lamb.

An earthenware pot reveals a curious coleslaw of vibrant cabbage
and cumin mayo speckled with nigella seeds: the surprise comes from
the baby battered whitebait and shrimp throughout ($13.90). It's
too rich for one but as part of a broader selection,
absolutely.

The marinated and chargrilled whole octopus - a special, $13.90
- comes spreadeagled across a big plate, minus its "head". The
dressing is of plump raisins, tomato and shallot with a baby shiso
scattering and it is fantastic. It is The Press Club on a plate:
Greek tradition and contemporary interpretation.

A silken-textured vegetable moussaka (potato, eggplant, red
onion, red capsicum, with a kefalograviera bechamel and more shiso)
served in a rustic iron pan ($24), is marred by excessive salt.
It's the only muck-up.

Fish of the day "properly garnished, Greek style" ($29) sees a
presentation of two pieces of very delicate rudderfish (sold to us
as butterfish, a not uncommon mistake) pan-fried golden with lemon
and a dusting of Mexican tarragon. It includes a pot of beetroot
tzatziki, another of couscous salad, a third of bean salad and a
stack of fried, tempura-battered zucchini and eggplant wafers. A
fresh, simple lunch with style (not forgetting a superb Greek salad
with wafers of pickled turnip, at $6.50).

It's with desserts Calombaris fuses that ambitious cooking
background with his Greek theme, with fascinating results. If you
order the selection ($26), you might see: Mastic-flavoured
pannacotta in a martini glass capped with a strawberry jelly,
macerated strawberries and a couple of cinnamon-dusted mini
loukoumades, Greek doughnuts, a weird-looking combination of
tahini-flavoured curd, liquorice ice cream, chocolate shards and a
sesame tuile; a terracotta pot of passionfruit "tzatziki" (laced
with fennel rather than cucumber) served with a fat cigar of
chocolate and walnut-centred baklava dusted with icing sugar and a
small, olive-shaped scoop of olive oil ice cream, and a refreshing
watermelon salad with yoghurt sorbet, sprinkled with crumbled feta,
baby shiso and basil oil. Each showed skill, balance and
imagination.

A word on water: if you want it bottled - flat or still -
there's a flat price ($5 lunch/$9 dinner) for as much or as little
as you consume. This is one aspect of the restaurant's
European-ness that will irk a few.

It shouldn't get in the way of what should be the residual taste
of this restaurant experience. The Press Club is a good story with
a strong angle, well and imaginatively written. Hold the front
page.